Ramsayings

It was amazing! Beautiful weather goes perfectly with great beer and people. Had a lot of fun.

What did I drink? (Looks at list.) Keep in mind they were 6 oz. cups. Otherwise I’d probably still be laying in the biergarten.

Listed in no particular order:

• Allagash Confluence
• Cigar City Maduro Brown Ale
• Dogfish Head Bitches Brew
• Dogfish Head Saison du Buff
• Green Flask Le Freak
• Harpoon Wet Hop
• Ommegang Cup o’ Kyndnes
• Sly Fox Keller Helles
• Victory Saison du Buff

Jesse cooked up some marvelous food, too. I wolfed down his choucroute garnie. What’s that. Think meat plate. It was Boudin blanc, ribs, pork belly, kielbasy, potatoes and kraut. Hearty. Just what the doctor ordered.

While I don’t share Lew’s frothing hatred of taxation, I must say that I’ve reached my limit with the PLCB. What was the last straw, you ask? I have never had a good local distributor in my life. I had a flirtation with Society Hill Beverage, but even their superior selection (by PA standards) and reasonable prices aren’t enough to keep me from envying my friends in Jersey, or from relishing trips to Helen’s home state too much. (Little secret: Virginia is for beer lovers! Bet you didn’t know Dogfish Head has a string of brewpubs down there!)

No one retailer is perfect. I’ll accept that for all intents and purposes beer snobbery is the new record snobbery. You can read all about it, salivate over every boutique brew, but the the real challenge is to find it in the wild. Might not be so hard at the local taprooms, but try finding a bomber of Dogfish Head’s latest, Bitches Brew, anywhere around town. It’s pointless to try.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m not typically a fan of privatization. Sure, there’s malfeasance in the public sphere, but we can influence that. Look around at what’s happened in the free market in the past ten years and ask yourself if they’re doing much better. What I will grant is that folks in other states with more liberal alcohol sales laws tend to have a better overall experience. Would it kill someone to let me buy a mixed six pack, instead of having to buy a whole case of pumpkin ale?

As it stands now, plenty of Pennsylvanians become bootleggers rather than conform to local laws. It’s too tempting to sneak over the Jersey or Delaware border to pick up your favorite beer and wine in stores that are frankly much better than any state store or distributor. Why not just reform the laws and find a way to make that system work as it does in neighboring states?

I will say this: bootlegging is much easier now since the advent of E-Z Pass. You don’t even have to wait in pesky toll lanes!

There’s something amiss in the Philly beer blogosphere, if you ask me. Lew’s been crazy busy with more important things, like sending his son to college, not to mention finishing up that book. (Congrats on both, Dad!) Ramblin’ Jack has been a little heavy on the press releases lately in ancitipation of launching a new site, which has been postponed, per his latest post. Beerlass has been doing her thing, but her blog tends to make me more hungry than thirsty. Love Joe Sixpack, but hate philly.com too much to find his stuff.  Where do I turn for more beer insight?

I’ve been tweeting recently with Dave Martorana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video podcast, which you can also view at their YouTube channel. Naturally, I’m eating crow here as they haven’t recorded since the World Cup ended, but I think that’s due to some shenanigans at Indy Hall. Dave’s been great about recommending other video podcasts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video podcasts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seriously. Amazing. I was totally over podcasting. The word just turned me off and the product often wasn’t much better. You know what changed all that? HD technology. Everything looks and sounds awesome, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Perfect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Recommend your favorite beer writers and podcasters. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long overdue for some goodies. Drop your recommendations in the comments so I can check ‘em out!

Philly Beer Week really works for a select constituency, mainly the guys who are covering the local beer scene. The rest of us can partake in the bajillion events happening all over the place if we like, but if articles like this one are any indication, Philly Beer Week has more in common with the local music scene in October than anyone would like to admit. Guys, all these events do is just cannibalize each other! (Hat tip to Lew Bryson for sharing that link on Facebook. I would’ve totally missed that piece in all the hoopla.)

I noticed an insightful tidbit from Mithras, a great Philly blogger I’d not read in a little while. He wrote:

I understand that bars have to pay a fee to PBW to participate. One bar owner told me it was $500. With 1,000 venues, that’s a lot of revenue. Of course it’s in PBW’s interest to have more and more events – but it’s not in bar owners’ or in beer drinkers’ interests.

So there’s the follow the money angle, if PBW organizers have no skin in the game for week to be a successful one from a standpoint of curating a great citywide beer experience.

Of course, I’m with the folks who just think that having Philly Beer Week during the first week of June is just silly. I managed to get over to Memphis Taproom — which is literally around the corner from my house, as I’ve written repeatedly — exactly twice. Helen and I squeezed in a quick dinner and drinks before the Erykah Badu concert and I made it back over one evening for a hasty Happy Hour with Charlie in my lap. I probably drank three beers total at Memphis Taproom that week, which is actually fewer than most weeks.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of making a fuss over Philly Beer Week. When I talk to beer-loving friends who live elsewhere they never forget to remind me just how lucky I am to be a Pennsylvanian, PLCB notwithstanding. We need to celebrate what makes this state so special to the microbrew culture that’s maturing into a sustainable business and not just luxury brews for beer snobs. But aren’t we celebrating that very thing nightly in this town? Do we really need bigger, better, faster, more? Philly Beer Week is verging on SXSW Music in terms of sheer scope and insanity.

Jack Curtin seems to feel the same way. Sure, March can be tricky, too, what with the whole St. Patrick’s Day thing, to say nothing of the impending 96 team field for March Madness, which may add an additional weekend to the proceedings. Factor in the lousy weather we had this winter and maybe Philly Beer Week dodged a bullet by moving to June. With any luck, the organizers will work some of the kinks out for next year and it’ll be the dream event everyone wants it to be.

(In case you’re wondering, I drank a delightful imperial stout from BrewDog called Tokyo. I thought it’d do me in. Need I mention what an amazing job Leigh, Brendan and the crew do over at Memphis Taproom during Philly Beer Week? No Repeat Beer Week for me is the epitome of what makes Philly such a great beer town. My neighborhood bar can create the entire experience in a microcosm! As they say where I grew up, ‘Nix besser!’)

As I watch the Phils wrap up a come from behind win against the hapless Astros, I can’t help but think about what I’ll be drinking this summer. It ain’t easy being a Pennsylvanian!

Summer beers I like include:

• Troegs Sunshine Pils
• Victory Prima Pils
• Philadelphia Brewing Co. Rowhouse Red (or Fleur de Lehigh)
• Sly Fox Pikeland Pils
• Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale

It’s nigh impossible to choose one as my favorite summer session ale. I know what you’re thinking: first world problems, dude. But it’s one of those things where you like to have a dependable go-to when you reach for a beer in your fridge or cooler, you know? I’ve been partial to Sly Fox, since I love the cans, but now Oskar Blues has Dale’s Pale in our market. I also love the refreshing taste of the Troegs and Victory selections. I must admit a waning appreciation for PBC beers; I just don’t think they live up to the quality of comparable craft beers. What’s your favorite? Feel free to sound off in the comments.

An aside: was the session beer movement just a figment of Lew’s imagination? Friends of mine who homebrew said they’d heard that everyone was going big — very big — just as the economy started tanking. Made sense to me, but as someone who’s trying to wean himself off of those humungo beers, I’d like to think some brewers haven’t abandoned it altogether.